


15

by fivour



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 08:37:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19787239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivour/pseuds/fivour
Summary: Reiji looks back up. It's quiet, and dark, and calm. The only sound is his own thoughts and the water, two things he's grown to loathe.





	15

It doesn't feel real. It hasn't felt real, not since that day.

Aine's good as gone.

Everyone hates him.

He hates himself.

So much for a birthday.

The day goes by in a blur. People wish him happy birthday, but it isn't genuine. Even his friends, if they still were his friends, don't really seem to look him in the eye. He knows they won't ask him to hang out later, so he doesn't ask either.

Reiji is tired. He's never been so empty, yet he feels full of regret. Aine has been gone for months. He shouldn't be sad anymore, should he? Why does everyone still look at him like that?

It feels like years before he finally gets to drag himself to the beach. He wants to cry just seeing the water, but he won't. Aine wouldn't want him to. Right?

There he goes again. Reiji still thinks he understands him, even though he knows he didn't. Doesn't. Won't.

He walks along the shore for what feels like hours. The moon and the stars are bright, this far out away from the city. He smiles sadly, stopping to gaze up at them for a while. He remembers when Aine would drag him out to look at them, and would spill all his most ridiculous thoughts and schemes to make him laugh. Reiji took those nights for granted.

_How can I keep losing things and still not fucking see it?_

He kicks the sand, watching it disturb the water briefly. A pesky thought at the back of his mind asks what would happen if he did it too. It's been there for weeks, eating away at his brain like a maggot. He won't do it. He couldn't. Aine will get better. He will be there for him.

Reiji finds himself at the spot soon enough. Their spot. Where they'd lay and talk, for hours on end. He stares at it blankly, before he lays down, crosses his arms over his stomach. It feels familiar and strange all at once.

It's beautiful outside tonight. He's sure Aine would appreciate the view. Out of habit, he glances over when he thinks of him.

He isn't here. Right.

Reiji looks back up. It's quiet, and dark, and calm. The only sound is his own thoughts and the water, two things he's grown to loathe.

2 months, he thinks, turning over. He rests his head on his arm, fingers messing with the grass. He'll be covered in dirt for sure, but it doesn't matter. He smiles a little, thinking about it. His mother would give him a spanking for getting all dirty, even if he is almost an adult. 3 years feels so much longer than it should. Time never really mattered, not while he had Aine. But now it all drags on forever.

It's calm for a while, before Reiji feels a shoe against his shoulder. He nearly jumps out of his skin, embarrassed when he sees who's caught him.

"The fuck are you doin' out here, Rei?" Kei asks, squatting down next to him.

Reiji wants to shrug away from the warm hand that rests on his arm. He wants to be alone, but... they really went looking for him?

"Well... I don't know."

"'Course you do," Hibiki says, sitting next to him. "Lookin' at stars like a little girl, yeah?"

He grins, as much as he doesn't want to. "Maybe."

Kei sits down, and pulls his knees up to his chest. He doesn't like to sit on the dirt, but Reiji won't get up without a fight. He never has, out of all the times they've found him out here.

"You ever go home yet?" Kei asks, and Reiji shakes his head.

"Told Mom I needed some time to myself," he admits quietly.

He feels pathetic when he says it out loud. He didn't even spend his birthday with his family. Instead he threw a pity party for himself.

"Hope you got enough of that. It'd be a weird birthday party without the birthday boy," Hibiki nudges his arm, and Reiji raises an eyebrow.

"Party...?"

"Uh huh. Beer. Football. You're invited too."

Reiji has to smile, and he looks back to the sky. He thinks a goodbye, to Aine, to the beach, and for the moment, to the fear that his friends hated him.

Kei's the first to get up, and helps Hibiki yank Reiji up.

"'Mon. Drinks won't steal themselves."

"We shouldn't steal, Kei-chan," Reiji chides.

"Who said 'we'?" Kei asks. "I know you pussies won't do shit."

Hibiki frowns, but the other two start walking before he can complain. Their chattering fills the silence Reiji had found earlier, and suddenly the beach doesn't feel so cold anymore. Even if it's only for a while, the ache begins to go away.

**Author's Note:**

> im back from the dead!! and the perspective changed!! wild
> 
> i really like writing this period of reijis life. i tried to get into his head in the begin, but then bring the reader back out to reality at the end but i think it's not as smooth a transition as i would've liked :( im workin on it!
> 
> i would like to try and develop reijis old friends a bit more thru my own writing as well. maybe i'll write some more for them. i feel like it'd be interesting to toy around with


End file.
